This illustrates the insanity of the ridiculously rich who are not taxed which is why so many governments are heading towards bankruptcy: $57.3M Basquiat Breaks Auction Record at Christie’s in NYC. This ‘painting’ is evil. Pure evil. I can’t imagine anyone except a banker or speculator living with that thing leering at them but then maybe this is all about self-portraits.

It was a packed house at Christie’s post-war and Contemporary evening sale on Tuesday night. Judging by the crowd, you’d think times are much more flush than they really are. But, apparently nothing brings out the 1 percent like whispers of a cooling art market. Are they looking for a good deal? Or do they just want to see the bubble slowly burst?

Chelsea Clinton’s hedge fund boss husband has refused to apologize to investors – despite losing nearly $25 million in a calamitous gamble on the Greek economy.

Marc Mezvinsky, 38, persuaded clients to pour cash into the struggling European country in the hope it would bounce back and deliver massive profits. But after buying up government debt and bank stock, the dramatic upturn he and his partners predicted failed to materialize and the fund’s value plunged by an estimated 90 percent.

Mezvinsky and former Goldman Sachs colleagues Bennett Grau and Mark Mallon are reported to have finally pulled the plug on the failed investment last month.

The University bubble is busting, too: BREAKING: Burlington College Closes Due To “Crushing Weight of Debt” Acquired By Jane Sanders as the smaller schools struggle to find more victims to drive deep into debt studying something that they can’t use to make money later and end up deep in debt. The first shot across my own prow was when I was studying German as a major and won scholarships at home and in Germany and was racing ahead of most of my peers expecting to work at some top university when boom: every major language program was eliminated starting with…GERMAN.

I instantly changed direction and went into construction instead. Most liberal arts degrees are worthless. It is very dangerous to take on $100,000 in debt so you can read Chaucer. Except Harry Potter’ College Courses – Yes, You Can Earn Credit for Studying Voldemort that is, you can pay a university thousands of dollars to prattle on about this infantile, thoughtless series of books and voila, get a degree showing that you know what a 10 year old could easily figure out.

While many schools use Harry as a way to introduce students to subjects they might otherwise not pursue, these are not necessarily easy-A classes. By and large, they are, however, extremely popular, with fierce competition for limited seats. Naturally, the professors who originate the classes tend to be imaginative types, not unlike certain Hogwarts instructors. (And yes, at least one has worn wizard robes while teaching.)

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia considers paying contractors with ‘IOUs’ amid oil price fall because it is going off the economic cliff. Also, the Saudi royals are snarling threats if anyone gets to learn the truth about 9/11 and that the bombs in the building bilge is tommy rot silliness: the Saudis attacked us on that day. Period. They are so hysterical about the truth of what they did to us, they will sell off all US debt and cause it to tank. Maybe Putin will buy it all up. Or China. Definitely, China.

The only evil involved in that painting is that it is being sold as high art. When really it is puerile, unimaginative, and containing no artistic technique. A child’s Halloween drawing of a devil holding a pitchfork would be more artistic. At least you would know the child is being earnest in his/her endeavors. This “artist” is holding out his hand and saying give me the money!

“Seriously, this is normal for Congress. You vote as the people who pull the strings tell you to vote.” This is EXACTLY why Congressional Budget Bills are 4000+ pages long. Every member of the political wh#re class can go to their constituents, shrug their shoulders and say, “Look, there were a lot of things in the Budget Bill I hated, but it had my amendments in it so I swallowed hard and voted Yes on the Spending/Budget Bill”. Gee whiz, aint that great? %00+ members of Congress and NOBODY is accountable!! This way the Speicail Interests can load all sorts of stinky stuff in Bills and get them passed because…. no one is to blame!! Real persons of integrity, those members of Congress.

Remember what W. S. Burroughs said to Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac when they asked him what “Art” is–

His response was, “‘Art’ is a three letter word”*, which I take to mean, it is totally subjective what “Art” is, depending on who defines it and most “Art” is utterly subjective as far as discerning the meaning intended by the so-called “artist”.

I agree with Elaine that the image created by Basquiat is rather “evil” and I don’t care much for it and I certainly wouldn’t pay that much for that image!

Note that either intentionally or unintentionally, Basquiat may be referencing the “shining ones”, AKA Elohim. The “shining ones” refers to a an alleged race of beings with two horns on their heads.**

It’s unknown, of course, if this is literally true, and is probably allegorical at best, and, again, I doubt if Basquiat intended anything other than this “art” is a form of “expression”.

As for liberal arts degrees, I agree with Elaine and everyone else about that issue. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Studies issued in the year of 1984.

I found that worthless in finding a job after I graduated because employers were looking for job candidates with a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Computer Science –and much of what I learned was “on the job” when I got the job when I convinced employers to hire me anyway.

In America, it’s all perhaps about learning to “sell yourself” to a potential employer, or, if you have your own business, “selling yourself” to a potential customer.

What is your “politics of experience” when it comes to that, hmmm?

I agree that Academia has been rightly criticized for being impractical as far as training people to solve problems in business in a practical way to conduct business in the market place –I know that from experience and some of you nice folks probably can vouch for that as well.

But, I will add, “your mileage may vary in that regard”.

As for the antics by “the rich”, I fear the “Hindustani people” are correct. We are most likely living in the age of Kali Yuga.***

Would you like the executive summary version of Kali Yuga? You don’t want to know.

If this is true, that we are living in “Kali Yuga”, then I’m sure it will get even more “interesting” as the Chinese note in one of their sayings about the times you may happen to being living in at the time of your life right now.

We may not have any choice but to watch how “interesting” it all gets, eh?

So let’s all just jump in where you can and hang on!

Peace.

—————————————————————————————-
* I note that Burroughs response was probably influenced by Korzybski, who Burroughs studied with briefly.

— See also the biography on Burroughs by Barry Miles entitled, “Call me Burroughs: A Life”, as I believe that’s where the incident is described where Ginsberg and Kerouac asked Burroughs to define “art”.

To Lou– I did take a class in “Lotus 1-2-3” and as a part of that suite of programs, there is a ‘word processing’ program called WordPerfect included in the “Lotus 1-2-3”.

“Lotus 1-2-3”, I will note, helped popularize the IBM PC computers in the 1980s.

“Wordstar” at the time was another ‘word processing’ program but it was based on the operating system of “CP/M”, which was not used on IBM PCs.

“Wordstar” was constructed later in such a way that it could be used on the “DOS” operating system, which the IBM PCs used called “MS-DOS”.

I worked with both of those ‘word processing’ programs at the time and the fellow students and instructors had mixed feelings about both in terms of the strength and weaknesses of both ‘word processing’ programs.

Beyond that, I’d have to send you my transcript of my college classes and frankly, I have other priorities right now, like attempting to get enough food to eat while living on SSD and SNAP (food stamps)!

The only thing I have really learned with the field of computers is that you have to “learn how to learn” and if you can’t keep up, then you might as well be dead.

That’s the lesson(s) that I learned from the hideous “Age of Reagan” and beyond in the “corporate” world or “reality”.